


Steadiest of Pulses

by aslightasthistledown



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Comfort, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 12:59:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12299724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aslightasthistledown/pseuds/aslightasthistledown
Summary: Sunlight streamed through the open window, spilling afternoon brightness onto the apartment’s floor, warming the low carpet and lifting its pale grey hue to an almost unbearable glow. A very slight breeze circled the main room from time to time. The wind wasn’t enough to lift the heat, but the man by the easel seemed to appreciate it.Grantaire is painting when a worn-down, tired-out Enjolras arrives.





	Steadiest of Pulses

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [World Ain't Ready](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2306315) by [idiopathicsmile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idiopathicsmile/pseuds/idiopathicsmile). 



> Jehan as a knight errant comes from chapter 3 of idiopathicsmile's extraordinary World Ain't Ready:  
> “So speaking of badass,” says Grantaire. “Courfeyrac, allow me to fill you in on some recent events regarding one Sir Jehan Prouvaire.”  
> “Oh?” says Courfeyrac, his standard grin back out in full force.  
> Jehan covers his face in his hands. “It wasn’t a thing,” he mutters.  
> “Dude,” says Grantaire. He spreads his arms wide, almost knocking a freshman in the face, but whatever. “Doubt that the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, but don’t doubt for one flipping second that it was A Thing.”
> 
> The POV switches half way through Steadiest of Pulses. I know.

Sunlight streamed through the open window, spilling afternoon brightness onto the apartment’s floor, warming the low carpet and lifting its pale grey hue to an almost unbearable glow. A very slight breeze circled the main room from time to time. The wind wasn’t enough to lift the heat, but the man by the easel seemed to appreciate it.

Grantaire was painting. Wave after wave of green tree boughs and round bushes flowed into life in watercolour. His brush mixed a swirl here, a daub there. Grantaire worked with a contentment too still for smiles, and, belying the occasional frown as he stepped back for judicious perspective, he was happy.

The door to his apartment swung open. There was the burdened tread of footsteps and the thud of a backpack hitting the entrance floor. Slowly the footsteps resolved into a man rounding the corner into Grantaire’s living rom. His white dress shirt looked as crumpled and worn as his face. He staggered to the only piece of furniture free of art supplies and books, and collapsed on it, closing his eyes.

“Enjolras!” Grantaire said, surprised and pleased. He took a step forward, then paused, remembering his bare torso. “Wait, hang on, I’ll find a shirt.”

Enjolras’s eyelashes flickered and he waved a limp hand in the negative. “It’s okay. Don’t stop for me. Not in this heat.”

Grantaire’s heart flooded with warmth as fierce as the afternoon sun and he turned away to hide his expression. Enjolras had remembered his complaints about the overlong dry weather this summer, how it dried the paint so quickly on the paper that the usual method of misting the paper had limited effect. Even though Enjolras was uncomfortable with bare skin, even his boyfriend’s, he’d prioritized Grantaire’s art. Grantaire blinked and refocused on the broad sheet, brush strokes careful and swift as the park budded green beneath his fingers.

Enjolras was quiet, barely stirring except to breathe great gulps of air. His rib cage rose and collapsed reluctantly, as if the labour of breathing was almost not worth the trouble. He lay sprawled on the couch, mostly upright, eyes more than half-closed for the eight minutes it took Grantaire to finish the layer he was working on of the watercolour, a commission for a local, elderly businesswoman.

Grantaire put down his brush into a mason jar with a few inches of pale green water in it and tucked the jar well under his easel, out of reach of a careless foot. He hesitated, but Enjolras was already stirring, dragging himself off the couch and into Grantaire’s open arms. Enjolras’s whole body sagged as he leaned into rather than stood before Grantaire. His head curled forward to tuck under Grantaire’s chin.

Grantaire held his boyfriend upright maybe more tightly than was strictly necessary, more than was practical in this heat. Something must be very wrong for Enjolras to rest against Grantaire’s bare chest like he wanted to burrow inside. For all that Grantaire was asexual and Enjolras was demi, Grantaire was comfortable with any amount of bare skin; Enjolras was the opposite. He was profoundly uncomfortable with even half-nakedness. Grantaire wondered sometimes if Enjolras would be more or less at ease with other people’s bodies if he’d been involved in as many sports as Grantaire had. Athletic pursuits tended to refocus the mind on how body mechanics worked and what your body would do, instead of being trapped by the social gaze of sexual objectification. Then again, Enjolras was so physically arresting that all the athletic pursuits in the world might not have made a difference.

“You’re early,” Grantaire said at last, fondly, gently, when it became clear that Enjolras wasn’t going to blurt out why he had arrived at Grantaire’s tiny flat an hour and a half ahead of when he’d planned to come or why he looked like the life and joy had been drained out of him. Grantaire had seen Enjolras exhausted before, of course, but this flatness was new. It was unsettling to see Enjolras so devoid of inner fire. The passionate love of justice and of fellow humans that fueled him should have blazed in his eyes, crackled in his speech, glowed in his smile. Enjolras ought not droop as if his essential core had been removed.

“I skipped going to the library after class,” Enjolras mumbled. “Caught a ride to the station.”

Grantaire tread very softly. “What? You didn’t spend an hour looking up the latest articles and statistics? Are you sure you’re my Enjolras?”

Enjolras didn’t answer, except by shifting uneasily.

“Hey. Hey, it’s okay,” Grantaire said. He pinched a strand of Enjolras’s hair and tugged delicately, just enough to catch Enjolras’s notice. His fingers moved from lock to lock, smoothing Enjolras’s hair, adeptly drawing his thoughts from distressing memory to where he was now.

“It’s just been…” Enjolras stopped. “I’m so tired.”

“Mmhmm,” said Grantaire. His fingers stilled.

“I’m not really sleeping and I don’t know.”

“Mmhmm,” said Grantaire.

“And it’s just so hot all the time. It’s the heat.”

“Mmhmm.”

There was a pause. Enjolras lowered his chin almost to his collarbone, making himself smaller. The back of his neck looked young and unexpectedly vulnerable. Grantaire traced light circles over Enjolras’s back. His fingers made almost no pressure against the shirt fabric; when Enjolras was upset he became acutely sensitive to physical stimuli.

“I’m only taking two courses this summer, why does it feel like schoolwork is taking up all my time and I’m never getting anything done?”

“This is your third semester running. That’s a long time to keep going without a break.”

Enjolras shifted rebelliously. “Had a break. Two weeks between terms.”

“Two weeks which you spent almost entirely at the Legal Aid Society, helping prepare the Tran case.”

“They needed help! It was the right thing to do.”

Grantaire held Enjolras even closer. “I know. You did good. And now you need the rest you missed, that’s all. Two weeks isn’t long enough, really.”

Enjolras settled. Grantaire thought he felt the brush of lashes sweep his collarbone as Enjolras blinked a few times, hard.

“Should have listened to you and Ferre.”

“You should _always_ listen to me and Ferre.” Grantaire made his voice light and warm.

“ _He’s_ working right through the summer, though.”

“Ferre’s a med student. They don’t get breaks.” Grantaire allowed himself a moment of regret for the puns Joly and Bossuet would make, if they could have heard him. “Anyway, I thought we decided that Ferre is a robot.”

Enjolras made a small, indecipherable snort. Grantaire decided this was laughter when it was followed by Enjolras uncurling his neck to resettle his head on Grantaire’s shoulder. “’S not a robot.”

“And neither are you. Just because Combeferre doesn’t get a break from his studies right now doesn’t mean he doesn’t need one, and it doesn’t mean you don’t need one, either. It’s okay to take care of yourself.”

Enjolras sighed. The warm breath on Grantaire’s skin had time to fade into blissful coolness and back again to dry baked-July warmth before he spoke.

“I’m just tired of people. Two of my classmates were saying stuff – we were talking about human rights, and refugees, and they made some stupid comments on sharia, and I just –”

“Islamophobic jerks,” Grantaire agreed. He swept an arm up and down Enjolras’s back, soothing.

 

 

Enjolras nodded, hair tugging up and down against Grantaire with the motion. He liked how he could feel Grantaire’s voice as well as hear it, the low rumble of air and skin vibrating, the steady firm-soft beat of his heart running through Enjolras’s ear and down to his lungs like a lullaby. Like falling asleep to the ocean, that steadiest of pulses.

Enjolras blinked, discovered that his body had to decide whether or not to cry. He hadn’t realized how bone-deep weary he was. His head rose and fell as Grantaire drew a long deep breath.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Grantaire said. Enjolras waited. He was perfectly sure he would agree to anything at this point. “First thing, you’re going to get out of those tired clothes. Actually, no. First thing, you’re going to take a shower. Second, I have some clean clothes you can wear. And you’re going to take a nap.”

“I don’t nap,” Enjolras said. He wasn’t arguing; this was a fact. Enjolras did not seem capable of napping. Courfeyrac had once signed him up for a workshop on the benefits of powernapping, and all Enjolras had learned was that naps were very good for people, and apparently impossible for him. He had spent a very boring 40 minutes trying, during that workshop and for three days following, just in case. Courf, who could nap on any known surface at the drop of a pin, found this inability both mystifying and hilarious. He’d spent a solid week falling asleep on Enjolras – on the bus, in class, at the Musain, in the library, even at the skating rink – multiple times a day, as if the ability to nap could be absorbed via osmosis. Or sheer proximity and exposure. It hadn’t worked.

“You don’t have to sleep. I just want you to lie down before you fall over,” Grantaire said. Enjolras picked up a rumble of amusement through the sound-vibrations. Oh. Right. Grantaire was supporting at least 60 percent of Enjolras’s body weight. He pushed himself slowly upright. Grantaire’s arms uncurled to let him go. Enjolras swayed slightly.

“Shower.”

“Right.”

“Then nap. And after that I have a plan.” Grantaire disappeared into his room for a few moments. He re-emerged with a faded blue t-shirt, shorts, and boxers. Enjolras took them and looked with suspicion at the shirt, which was most definitely one Grantaire had painted in. He ran a finger over a splatter of paint flecks, stiff spots against the soft cotton.

“Is it a good plan?”

Grantaire grinned, wide and easy. “When will you learn that all my plans are good?” he asked, trailing a hand in the air.

“Quoting from a talking llama does not fill me with confidence,” Enjolras muttered over his shoulder. “An _imperial_ llama, at that.” Three small steps and he was at the bathroom door. Grantaire’s flat really was tiny.

“You really should have thought of _that_ before you became peasants.” Grantaire picked up his jar of brushes. He swirled the jar reflectively. “Or before you entered this apartment,” he added on his way to the kitchen sink.

“All his plans were terrible. All _both_ their plans were terrible,” Enjolras yelled through the door.

“Lalalalala, I’m not listening,” Grantaire sang.

Something began to loosen in Enjolras’s gut, as if he was shedding a burden along with his clothes. “For the last time, we did not order a giant trampoline!” he yelled.

“Aaaaaaaaaaah!” Grantaire squawked, cat-Yzma style.

Enjolras drowned him out by turning on the shower.

The water felt good.

It fell heavily at first, hot streams pouring from ancient plumbing to pummel his back with almost cruel force. Enjolras hastily adjusted the knobs and waited for the temperature to drop. Waveringly, it did, flickering between too-cold and blissfully just-warm to balance the hot summer day. By imperceptible degrees the air picked up moisture, carrying minute droplets into Enjolras’s lungs as he soaped his skin, the lather washing off stinging memories along with sweat and dirt. The water pressure was more bearable now, bracing instead of punishing. Enjolras closed his eyes and let water flow over him, basking in the stillness the rush of water and new cleanliness afforded.

He almost stumbled with pleasant lethargy when the water stopped, limbs slow with blissful ease as he toweled himself off and dressed again. Grantaire was singing in the kitchen, words blurred into an inarticulate golden hum audible through the bathroom door.

Grantaire’s brushes gleamed in the drainboard when Enjolras emerged. Two mugs of tea sat steaming on the counter. He picked up the milkier of the two, rolling his eyes. Only Grantaire would think of hot drinks on an even hotter day. His mouth twitched into a smile as he looked around. The room was empty and Grantaire’s singing had been replaced with an odd bumping noise from the far end of the apartment. Enjolras crossed the floor, automatically hopping over the creaky floorboard just outside the kitchen.

“Enj?” Grantaire’s voice was muffled. The door to his bedroom wobbled and swung open. “Oh, good.” His feet slowly backed out of the room as he pushed himself from under the bed, a battered plastic case in hand. He was wearing a shirt, now, and it was slightly dusty. “Couch,” he ordered.

Enjolras sat. Grantaire snagged his mug of tea with a hand that held, Enjolras saw when Grantaire sat beside him, a miniature pair of scissors and a large safety pin.

“What’s that for?”

Grantaire opened the box. Inside were rows of gleaming colours wrapped around thin cardboard bobbins. “It’s summer,” Grantaire said, fingertips hesitating over a spray of seafoam greens. “Which means it’s time to make a bracelet for Jehan.” He pulled out two bobbins and turned his attention to a row of pale pinks.

“You’re making a friendship bracelet?”

“Every summer. I’m late this year, actually, I’ll have to work fast.”

“It’s only July. You’ve weeks left.”

“Six weeks, to make seven bracelets. Eight.”

“You’re making Jehan eight bracelets?”

Grantaire snorted. “Once Jehan wears his, Bahorel will want one. Then Joly will ask, and after that Bossuet, and Musichetta. Last September Courf complained so much that I promised him I’d make him one this year, and he said he wanted his to twin Combeferre’s, so I’d better make him one as well. Though I might get out of that, now.”

“You don’t make Eponine a bracelet?”

“Nah, she makes one for Cosette, and Cosette makes her one. They decide on a new colour scheme every year. And Cosette has made Marius a bracelet every summer they’ve been together, so I should be able to talk Ep into making Ferre’s.”

Enjolras blinked, head spinning from all the strands he hadn’t noticed. “Even if you make Ferre’s, that’s still only seven.”

“You would be the eighth. If you want one.”

“Oh,” said Enjolras. He blinked, eyes startled wide for a moment as he took in Grantaire’s face. A slow smile unfurled across his face.

“So,” Grantaire sipped his tea, “ _You_ are going to drink your tea and take a nap, and _I_ am going to make a friendship bracelet for one Jehan Prouvaire, knight errant, starting now.” He slid off the sofa to sit at Enjolras’s feet. Enjolras blew on his drink, cradling the mug with his fingertips, and watched Grantaire measure out a length of embroidery thread on his arm. A second and third thread followed, stretched against the first. When the colours in Grantaire’s fist approximated a small, riotous garden, Enjolras set his half-drained mug on the floor and lay down.

He wasn’t going to sleep. There was something restful about the measured plucking of Grantaire’s fingers on the strings, though, knots and patterns slowly emerging in a design chosen expressly to suit a particular friend, Grantaire’s dark curly head bent and focused on the threads pinned through the hem of his shorts, just above the knee, his sturdy body become a bulwark that sheltered without confining.

Enjolras’s eyes drifted shut.

He knew he’d fallen asleep when a hand on his shoulder woke him, because he couldn’t remember what he’d been thinking last. There’d been a story, he was sure of it, an adventure of some sort turning from episode to episode as dreams did, in that wispy fashion which was perfectly reasonable in the dream, and defiant of all logic outside.

“Hey.” It was Grantaire’s voice. Enjolras reluctantly flickered his eyes open to squint at the dear ugly face. “You’ve been out for half an hour. Ready for the next part?”

Enjolras groaned and levered himself up just enough to sprawl on the green couch’s arm. This position would become very uncomfortable in about twenty more seconds, he estimated. It was a surer way to make himself move than rolling off the couch. The carpet was, if no doubt unvacuuumed, a flat surface that provided no motivation to move whatsoever.

“What’s your terrible plan?” he mumbled.

“My _excellent_ plan is a secret until you actually get up.”

Enjolras growled.

A whoosh of air washed over his face as Grantaire crouched beside him. “You okay? You could go back to sleep if you need. I just thought it’s kind of late in the day for a long nap, and you usually go to bed early.”

Enjolras snaked a hand out until he’d found Grantaire’s. “I’m good,” he said, and forced himself to prove it by sitting up and opening his eyes as Grantaire stood. The late afternoon sun was as bright as he’d remembered. He ducked his head into the welcome darkness Grantaire’s soft, rounded belly provided against the light.

“Up you get.” Grantaire pulled him to his feet. A few feet away the easel had been replaced by the kitchen table and two chairs. A smattering of small canvases spread across the nearest ends. “Here’s what we’re doing. You are going to paint a tree in the style of Gustav Klimt.”

Enjolras hesitated. “I don’t know how to paint.”

“Everybody knows how to paint. My kids are painting like Klimt this week, and two of them are havoc on stubby legs. Half of them had never held a paintbrush before and they’re doing just fine.”

Enjolras hesitated.

“I’ll show you,” Grantaire said. He pulled the largest canvases nearer. “These are my reproductions of two of Klimt’s best-known works. His paintings were characterized by stylized lines, ornate mosaics, and metallic colours.”

Enjolras surveyed the canvases. Figures seemed made of robes comprised of blocks of colour, except somehow they didn’t seem blocky. He looked closer. The tile-like chunks of colour weren’t squares, or even consistently identical rectangles, and the edges didn’t all line up. Instead of standing in rigid lines, like soldiers, or like the blank windows of new apartment buildings, the tiles seemed to sweep with the robes. He didn’t know what gave the paintings this effect, but there always seemed more to look at.

“Here are some examples from past students,” Grantaire said, gesturing to a handful of smaller, obviously less expertly-painted canvases. Swirling branches greeted him, the single trees on each canvas waving almost like inverted jellyfish. No, that wasn’t quite right.

“Sea anemones,” Enjolras said. “I get that they’re trees, but they look like sea anemones.”

Grantaire laughed. “Did Ferre drag you to that exhibit last month at the aquarium?”

Enjolras shook his head at the memory. “Jehan crooned over them for _hours_. He wanted to adopt one as a pet. Or a muse. I couldn’t tell.”

“If you want your own anemone muse, I won’t deny you.”

Enjolras shook his head firmly. “No, so I’m painting a tree?”

“You’ll have one colour for the tree, and one for the background.” Grantaire lifted one of the student paintings by a corner. “Unless you want a pattern, like Lou here did. When the paint is dry, you get to add in silver or gold highlights with these.” He whipped a pair of enormous sharpies from under a blank canvas. “Ta da!”

A smile slowly spread over Enjolras’s face. Grantaire was _ridiculous_. “Okay,” he said, pulling the nearest blank canvas toward him.

“The paints are – here.” Grantaire ducked under the table and pulled out a tub full of acrylics. It landed on the table with a thud. “Your palette is here.” A tiny metal dish with seven tablespoon-sized dimples appeared beside the tub. “Shake the paint well before you use it, and squirt just a little on your palette to begin with. You’ll need less than you think.”

Enjolras sat. “Um. So I just begin?”

“Nearly forgot. If you want to draw your tree first, here’s a pencil, just go lightly, especially if you’re going to use lighter colours.”

Enjolras picked up the pencil. He gazed at his canvas, then paused. “Grantaire? What are you going to do?”

Grantaire sat, blank canvas before him and pencil in hand. Tiny twitches of the pencil suggested that Grantaire was sketching out possibilities in his mind before committing them to cloth. “I’m planning Wednesday and Thursday’s project. I need to have a sample ready for my students.” His hand moved in sure, swift slashes. Light pencil lines formed a figure. “Portrait of someone wearing a robe, Klimt-style.”

Enjolras was entranced. “That’s Feuilly,” he said. He was certain he was right, though how the Feuilly-ness of the figure shone through a few, not very detailed lines, he couldn’t say. Maybe it was the body proportions those scant lines suggested, or that the posture suggested humility and independence, gentleness and determination. Enjolras’s breath caught on a rush of desire to show his friends how much he loved them. He turned to his canvas with new purpose. “I want to do that.”

“Today you are drawing a tree.” Enjolras’s gaze flew up. This must be Grantaire’s teacher voice, kind and firm. Enjolras had never been unable to argue with anyone, but he did not feel that he wanted to challenge this voice.

“But I –” he tried anyway.

“Begin at the beginning. Today you are painting a tree,” Grantaire repeated. His lips curled upward in a private smile. He looked at Enjolras as if waiting for him to continue a sentence.  

“Today,” Enjolras said, working it out. His face relaxed into a smile. “Today I will paint a tree. And next time I will paint a friend.”

Grantaire’s smile broadened. Enjolras’s insides melted all soft and warm, and Grantaire looked down at his canvas before Enjolras’s heart overflowed his ribs that Grantaire was looking at him like that.

A tree. He would paint a tree for Grantaire.

Enjolras surveyed the samples on the table before him. Graceful as the swirling branches were, they were only lines to him. Enjolras wanted to paint something real, something concrete, a specific and living tree. His mind’s eye swept through the city streets and parks, long avenues and gardens. He found nothing. No tree called out with particular and urgent meaning.

Not true.

Enjolras closed his eyes and retraced his steps that day. There. He followed each limb, fixing its position in his mind. When he opened his eyes he saw not the white canvas empty before him but the shape of a slender, durable sapling of three years’ growth. The pencil scratched lightly on the cloth as Enjolras drew the tree that grew in the grass outside Grantaire’s apartment, the marker that meant he had come home. 


End file.
